Category Archives: Bread

Lowfat “Hummingbird Bread” (aka Pineapple Banana Bread)

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I’m always looking for new ways to use my over-ripe bananas. Usually it’s just a basic banana bread. But that gets boring after a while. I was inspired by a Hummingbird Cake recipe on Martha Stewart’s site and decided to make my own lowfat version. In making it lowfat, I knew the texture would end up being more of a bread than a ‘cake’, so I put it in a loaf pan and am calling it Hummingbird Bread. I also left out the nuts to keep it lowfat, but feel free to add pecans to the batch if you’d prefer.

I LOVE this recipe because it’s SO incredibly easy! Literally throw everything in a bowl, mix and bake. My husband is addicted. I can’t keep the stuff in the house.

Lowfat Hummingbird Bread (aka Pineapple Banana Bread)

Serves 12

  • 3 cups self-rising flour
  • 1 1/2 cups Splenda
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 2 bananas, mashed
  • 1 cup crushed pineapple, with juice
  • 1 t vanilla
  • 1 t cinnamon
  • 5 egg whites
  1. Preheat oven to 325 F. Lightly spray 2 loaf pans with nonstick spray.
  2. Mix all ingredients together until just combined. Divide batter between pans. Bake 40 mins or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Allow to cool slightly before sliding a knife around the edges and inverting the bread onto a plate.
  3. Optional: Make a cream cheese frosting for the top out of light cream cheese (approx 4 Tbsp), powdered sugar (approx 1/3 cup), vanilla and a bit of milk (approx 2 Tbsp).

Nutrition (without frosting): 185 cal, 0.4g fat, 40.4g carb, 1.8 fiber, 13.8g sugars, 5g protein

Cran Apple Bran Muffins (Faux VitaTop Muffin Copycat)

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I have developed a love for the lowfat, low calorie muffin tops that are the Vitalicious VitaTop Muffin Tops. However, I DON’T love the exorbitant amount of money these little morsels cost. So, I set out to make my own.  My two favorite flavors are Deep Chocolate and Cranberry Apple Bran.  I think I have successfully found recipes that copy both (chocolate one to come at a later time).  After finding a nice base recipe for a Cranberry Apple Bran recipe (full fat), I started tweaking (while enduring some pretty dry/flat versions) until I got a lowfat/low cal version of it that I’m happy with. And here I am to share my results with you.

Plus, like the VitaTops, these are right around 95 calories each with just 0.4 g fat and about 2.2g fiber. (i.e, good for you!). The full nutrition stats are at the bottom of the post for all of you out there who want the deets.

These muffins are GOOD. So good I can’t wait for them to cool down after they come out of the oven and generally end up burning my tongue off on the super hot apples inside. Worth the burn.

Cran Apple Bran Muffins

Makes 18 muffins. (faux vitatop muffin copycat recipe)

  • 1 c wheat bran
  • 3/4 c skim milk
  • 1 1/4 c wheat flour
  • 1 1/2 t baking powder
  • 1/4 t baking soda
  • 1/4 t salt
  • 1 1/2 t cinnamon
  • 1/4 t nutmeg
  • 1/4 c brown sugar
  • 1/2 c splenda
  • 1/3 c applesauce, unsweetened
  • 1/4 c nonfat egg substitute (or egg whites)
  • 1 Tbsp vinegar
  • 1 1/2 chopped, peeled apples
  • 1/3 c Craisins
  1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly coat a 18 cups of 2 muffin tins with nonstick spray.
  2. Combine wheat bran and milk. Let rest 5 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl.
  4. In a separate bowl, combine brown sugar, splenda, applesauce, egg and vinegar.
  5. Add wheat bran and milk mixture and wet ingredient mixture to the dry mix and stir until just combined (do not over mix)
  6. Stir in apples and Craisins (or reserve Craisins to sprinkle over the top if you wish).
  7. Divide batter evenly between 18 muffin cups. Bake 12-15 mins, until a toothpick comes out clean.
  8. Devour!

Nutrition: 95 calories. 0.4g fat. 20.7g carb. 2.2g fiber. 2.2g protein.

Muffin Mania

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I have been delaying posting these recipes waiting to take some pictures, but my life is crazy right now so I unfortunately haven’t been able to get to it.  In the meantime, I don’t want to keep these AH-MAZ-ING recipes from you, my loyal readers, any longer. These are both really really delicious, almost non-fat (traces of fat from fruits & egg substitute) and right around 100 cals each. How can you go wrong?

Wheat Bran Banana Muffins

  • 4 Bananas, very ripe
  • 1/2 c unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/3 c brown sugar
  • 1/3 c splenda
  • 1/3 c egg substitute (or egg whites)
  • 3/5 c skim milk, soured with 1 Tbsp white vinegar
  • 2 c whole wheat flour
  • 1 c wheat bran
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 3/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (approx)
  1. Preheat oven to 375. Spray muffin tin with non-stick spray.
  2. In a large bowl, mash bananas. To bananas, add applesauce, sugar, splenda, egg whites, skim milk with vinegar added to it.
  3. In a separate bowl, mix flour, bran, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
  4. Add dry ingredients to wet, and stir until just combined. Do not over beat.
  5. Divide evenly between 18-24 muffin cups, sprinkle with about 5 chocolate chips each muffin, and bake for 18-22 minutes, until lightly browned and knife inserted comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Mango Coconut Muffins

  • 2 c whole wheat flour
  • 1/4 c sugar
  • 3/4 c splenda
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3/4 c egg substitute
  • 1/2 c unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/4 c skim milk
  • 1 Tbsp vinegar
  • 2 tsp coconut flavoring
  • 2 cups diced mango (about 3 mangos)
  • 1 medium banana, mashed
  1. Preheat oven to 350. Generously spray muffin tins with cooking spray (these tend to stick a bit)
  2. In a large bowl, combine the first 5 ingredients (dry ingredients).
  3. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining ingredients except the mango and banana.
  4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just moistened.
  5. Stir in mango and banana. Bake for 20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Whole Wheat Pita Bread

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My mom gave my sister and I each our own copy of King Arthur Flour Whole Wheat Baking. She’s had this book since last year and has great luck with each and every recipe. So much that my sis and I kept calling her for recipes. She must have got sick of us always asking and decided we needed our own. Anyway… I very highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in whole grains and baking. You’d be surprised at how light and fluffy a lot of these recipes taste. You’d never guess they were whole wheat/grain!

Back to the recipe on hand…. Last night, I decided to try out the Whole Wheat Pita Bread recipe. I’ve heard pitas are pretty easy to make and I had some falafel and greek yogurt (that I turned into tzatziki) that I needed to use. It only took about 5 mins to mix all the ingredients together, let them rise for 1 1/2 hours while I went to the gym, then came home and whipped them out in no time!

I ate them with my falafel last night and this morning I had them again for breakfast with some scrambled egg and feta cheese. Yum!

Important Notes if you’re going to try this recipe that I found made it easier and made those little rounds get nice and puffy:

#1: Move your oven rack all the way to the bottom, closest to the heating coils.

#2: They cook quickly and require a turn mid-baking. This means you’re going to lose a lot of heat in a conventional oven from so much open/closing. I recommend upping the temp to 465 (from the recommended 450).

#3: Pre-heat your baking sheet or whatever you’re baking them on (I didn’t have the bread stone it called for, so I used a cookie sheet).

#4: Use a spatula to flip them over halfway through. Tongs don’t work (as I quickly found out after my first attempt. Silly me!

Whole Wheat Pita Bread

Makes 8 pitas
Cook Time: 5 mins each batch (cook 2 pitas per batch)

  • 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 1/2 cups bread flour (I didn’t have this on hand so I used whole wheat pastry flour instead. Bread flour has more gluten and makes the texture better. Pastry flour also has a fairly high gluten content, and I felt they came out just fine)
  • 1 1/2 t salt
  • 1 1/2 t instant yeast (or active dry yeast dissolved into 1/4 cup of the recipe’s water)
  • 1 1/4 cups warm water
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  1. Combine all ingredients together and mix or kneed by hand or mixer until you have a soft supple dough. About 8 minutes by hand, 5 minutes by mixer (the kitchen aid dough hook works perfectly for this!). It should feel tacky to the touch. You may need a bit more flour, but not too much.
  2. Cover the bowl and let rise until approx doubled in bulk, 1 1/2 hours.
  3. Place a baking stone on the bottom rack of your oven and preheat overn to 450 (I did it at 465 to make up for all the in and out I was going to do)
  4. After it’s risen, place the dough on a lightly floured surface and cut in half. Cut each half into 4 equal parts until you have 8 lumps of dough. Form each into a ball, cover and let the dough rest 10 mins. Make sure to keep the dough covered unless you’re working with it at the moment.
  5. After the dough has rested 10 minutes, use a rolling pin to roll out each ball into a circle approx 6 inches diameter and less than 1/4 inch thick. Use only enough flour to prevent sticking but do not over-flour. Keep the waiting dough covered as you work.
  6. Load 2 pitas at a time directly onto the baking stone (or in my case, an ungreased baking sheet). Bake approx 3 mins on one side, flip and bake on the other 2 additional minutes. It should take 3-4 minutes to go into full “balloon”. Turn them once when they are baking.
  7. Stack the warm pitas together in a kitchen towel to keep them from crisping as they cool.
  8. EAT THE PITAS!

Nutrition: 196 cal, 4g fat, 6g protein, 35g carb, 4g fiber.